No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Retirement Apparently Requires a Schedule

I volunteer. I like volunteering. I've been doing it for years, and I genuinely believe in helping people. But somewhere along the way, someone apparently confused "volunteer" with "available on demand."

Recently, our Village had a couple of open requests for volunteer drivers. I recently rejoined the ranks of “official driver” for WLLO and took the four hour online Defensive Driving Course offered by the National Safety Transportation Council.  I was asked if I could take one.

I couldn’t.  Neither one.

Apparently, that wasn't quite the end of the conversation. I was then asked to enter my unavailable times into our volunteer scheduling software. My unavailable times? I'm retired. My schedule changes from week to week. Even hour to hour! Most  days I drive a grandson to school. Other days there are appointments, errands, family obligations, banking, and various other commitments.

Next week I have THREE medical appointments in ONE DAY. At this age, that's what we call a social calendar. And occasionally, I have nothing scheduled. Which does not necessarily mean I'm available.

Nevertheless, a few days later, I volunteered to pick up a fellow Village member at the airport. Her flight from San Jose was due to arrive in time for a 10:15 a.m. pickup.

Simple enough. Drive to the airport, collect passenger, deliver her home.

HA!

First, her flight was delayed. Thankfully she called me before I left home and left a message. Then updates: Everyone boarded the plane, sat there for 45 minutes, and was told to get off. The airline apparently decided that particular airplane wasn't interested in flying that day. Eventually, another plane was located. New flight number. New departure time.

Meanwhile, I consulted approximately 4,935 flight-tracking websites, none of which agreed with the others. Should I leave? Should I wait? Was she airborne? Was the plane even airborne?

She called me at 1:30 to say she had landed.  I had not even left home!  I finally collected my passenger at 2:15 p.m.

She arrived with three enormous bags, a rolling backpack, and another bag. Apparently, she'd been in San Jose long enough to acquire most of its contents.

After loading everything into my car, we headed home. My passenger was happy to chat. Very happy. So happy that I missed my exit.

We finally reached her house. (Even though I didn’t take the route she thought I should have) She didn't have her keys.

Of course she didn’t. She looked under every rock and flower pot to no avail. Several phone calls later, a neighbor with a spare key saved the day.

I arrived home at 4 p.m.

Six hours devoted to what was supposed to be a simple airport pickup.I poured a glass of wine. Dinner was someone else's responsibility.

Now, back to that volunteer scheduling software.

I understand why organizations want to know when their volunteers are available. It makes coordinating services easier.

But there's a difference between having time and wanting to commit that time.

My calendar isn't a list of opportunities for someone else to fill.

I volunteer because I want to help. I have been doing it for years, and I intend to keep doing it. But I also intend to enjoy retirement, which occasionally means doing absolutely nothing without having to justify it.

Perhaps our scheduling software needs one additional category:

Unavailable. No particular reason. And that's perfectly fine.

Technology Is Wonderful. Until It Isn’t.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. That's what they keep telling us, anyway.  I'm beginning to suspect that the people who design these marvelous time-saving inventions have never actually tried using them.

Take today, for example.

I volunteer for an organization that helps older adults remain independent in their homes (WLLO Village). We have a wonderful little technology system that monitors activity in the homes of members who live alone. Every day at precisely 12:15 p.m., our office receives an email telling us who has been active and who might need a welfare check.

It's a terrific idea. And today we had TWO alerts. And it was my day at the Office.

The first was a woman whose cleaning person has a habit of accidentally unplugging the device. Apparently, the cleaning person and the technology have not yet established a satisfactory working relationship.

The second alert concerned a woman who is mostly blind and who has NEVER answered the telephone when I've called her.  Never. Not once.

Fortunately, we have a volunteer who calls her every Monday morning. So I called that volunteer. Wrong number. Not just unanswered. WRONG. I left a voicemail anyway, which presumably confused a perfectly innocent stranger who had no idea what I was talking about.

Fortunately, this kind person called me back. I then emailed our volunteer, who provided her correct number. And somewhere in the middle of all this, the woman we were actually concerned about answered her telephone!

Success! Everyone was accounted for, nobody needed rescuing, and I had only involved one innocent bystander in the process.

But wait. There's more.

I had been working on a calendar for WLLO Village in Google Docs. Somehow, some of the borders around the calendar squares had disappeared. All I wanted was to put the lines back. A simple request, wouldn't you think?

Max, my AI assistant and I spent an absurd amount of time hunting for menus, buttons, settings, and options that apparently existed in some alternate version of Google Docs.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT itself decided that our conversation should no longer be a conversation. Every time I tried to respond, it seemed determined to start a brand-new chat. This was particularly helpful when I needed to refer to the instructions it had just given me.

And a few weeks ago, the same AI assistant went through a phase in which it insisted on using something called Nano Banana when I wanted help creating graphics. Nano Banana.

I am 74 years old. I have lived through rotary telephones, party lines, typewriters, carbon paper, floppy disks, dial-up internet, and the invention of the smartphone.

And now I'm being defeated by something called Nano Banana.

I don't object to technology. I use it every day. I appreciate what it can do. I even enjoy it when it behaves.

But I do wonder how much time we're actually saving.

We have devices that tell us whether someone is moving around, computers that help us communicate, software that organizes our lives, and artificial intelligence that promises to answer practically any question.

And yet, today, the most effective piece of technology was a telephone call from a nice stranger who had received a message intended for somebody else.

Perhaps that's the lesson. Technology is wonderful. Until it isn’t. And when it isn't, thank goodness there are still actual human beings who answer the phone.

P.S And just when I thought the day's technological adventures were over, I reopened my Google Docs calendar. All the missing lines had magically returned. I hadn't fixed anything. Apparently, the computer had simply decided to cooperate.

Then came another email from Uber.

I've been trying to resolve a billing problem with Uber for months. My credit card company finally reimbursed me, but Uber's Priority Support team apparently hasn't received the memo. Today, yet another representative contacted me requesting the dates, amounts, and credit card information so they could investigate my complaint.

Investigate? NOW?

At this rate, I expect to receive a satisfactory resolution sometime around my 90th birthday.

Assuming, of course, that I'm still using the same credit card.

 

Job Security ..... Just an Observation

I've been retired for years. Or so I thought.

It occurred to me recently that I have more jobs now than I did when I was actually employed. The difference is that nobody pays me, I don't get vacation days, and there's no Human Resources department where I can file a complaint.

Let's review my current employment situation.

Chauffeur. My most regular assignment is transporting a grandson to school. I call it Uber Gramma. The hours are unreasonable (I have rise at 7:30 am), the passenger sometimes needs reminding to charge his phone, and tips are nonexistent. I do, however, get to hear occasional snippets of teenage conversation, which can be worth the trip. And an “I love you Gramma, thanks for the ride”.

Ice Maker. Apparently, I am the only person in a household of five who understands the complex technology involved in filling ice trays. Everyone knows how to USE ice. Making more seems to require specialized training.

Chief Dust Officer. We live near a cement factory, which means I could dust hourly and still find a fresh coating on the furniture. Oddly, no one else seems to notice dust. I suspect their eyesight is perfectly fine when looking for snacks.

Laundry Specialist. My clearance is now strictly limited to washing, drying, and folding bath towels and dish towels. I am not authorized to handle anyone else's clothing. After raising my child and running households for decades, I find it amusing that my laundry credentials have been downgraded. (Jesse is very very persnickety and really tries to beat me to the towels).

Postmaster General. We have a mail center next to our building. We have keys to our mailbox in a little table by the front door. Nevertheless, I appear to be the only person qualified to retrieve the mail and distribute it to the appropriate recipients. Neither rain nor sleet nor the possibility of junk mail shall keep Gramma from her appointed rounds.

Director of Inventory Control. When we run low on something, I add it to the grocery list. The list is taped to the kitchen bar. There is even a pen TIED TO IT. Despite this remarkably sophisticated system, no one else seems capable of recording that we've used the last of something. Apparently, noticing an empty container and writing down its contents is a two-person job.

Fleet Manager. Both adults borrow Olive, my car. They know how to start her, drive her, and return her. What they have not mastered is the mysterious process of putting gasoline in the tank. Fortunately, Olive and I know where the low price gas stations are.

Chief Financial Officer. I operate the Bank of Gramma.  Complete with allowances, payroll, employment opportunities, and Apple Cash transfers. I recently exchanged $400 in actual currency for $400 in electronic currency so my teenage entrepreneur could conduct business. I'm not entirely sure how I became the Federal Reserve.

Employment Agency. I maintain a list of household jobs available to two teenage boys. Some are regular responsibilities that they must do as part of being a family. Others are paying opportunities. I've discovered that a grandson who can't see a dirty dish on the counter can demonstrate remarkable attention to detail when there's three dollars involved.

Executive Chef. I don’t get to cook very often. Once a week I prepare dinner for five, making sure it is palatable for all. These occasions should be declared national holidays.

Sous-Chef and Food Procurement Specialist. Even when I'm not cooking dinner, I may be washing, chopping, slicing, planning, or purchasing ingredients so someone else can cook. I've become quite skilled at preparing meals I won't actually be making.

Bookkeeper. My daughter's native plant nursery requires financial records, expense tracking, and the occasional investigation into where the money went. I have spreadsheets. Many spreadsheets. I may be retired, but apparently Excel isn’t. Thank goodness for Max, my AI assistant.

Household Consultant. I offer suggestions about organization, purchases, repairs, schedules, and the efficient operation of our shared household. Some suggestions are welcomed. Most are apparently placed in a file marked "We'll Think About It," never to be opened again.

And, of course, there's my position as Grandmother.

This is the only job for which I actually applied. The duties, however, have expanded considerably since the original agreement.

At 74, I thought I might have earned the right to sleep late, read a book, and occasionally spend an entire afternoon doing absolutely nothing.

Instead, I'm apparently the only person in this household who can recognize dust, operate an ice tray, retrieve the mail, write "milk" on a grocery list, and locate a gas pump.

I live with four perfectly intelligent, physically capable human beings. Two of them are adults. Two are teenagers who can operate electronic devices that would have baffled NASA in 1969.

Yet empty and refill an ice tray remains an unsolved mystery.

I've considered going on strike, but I know how that would end. We'd have no ice, no clean towels, a mountain of unopened mail, and Olive would be sitting in the driveway with the gas gauge on E. And nobody would know we were out of toilet paper until it was too late. So I'll continue reporting for duty. But I'm updating my résumé.

Qualifications: Seventy-four years of life experience, excellent organizational skills, and the ability to identify an empty container.

Salary: Zero.

Benefits: Occasional hugs, unsolicited teenage opinions, and access to whatever food hasn't already been eaten.

Retirement eligibility: Apparently, death.

Job security: Unfortunately, excellent.

Gramma Is Mad

I am mad at Facebook.

This isn't entirely new. Facebook and I have had words before. Usually when I finally figure out where they put something, only to discover that somebody in California has decided to move it. Again.

But this time I'm REALLY mad.

I post daily to our Facebook page for a small nonprofit organization for Seniors (to help our neighbors age at home,) run by volunteers. We use Facebook to do terribly radical things like tell older adults what's happening in their community, share an interesting article about aging, announce an event, and occasionally post something silly enough to make people smile.

Recently Facebook informed us that our Page can share only two outside links a month. From subscriptions that I personally pay for.

Two.

Not two a day.

Not two a week.

TWO A MONTH.

Want to share an article from The New York Times about healthy aging? There's one.

An interesting piece from Next Avenue? There's two.

See you next month, Internet.

And don't think you're going to outsmart Facebook by putting the link in the comments. They thought of that. That counts, too.

Of course, there is a solution.

We can pay Meta.

For about $50 a month, FB Pages can subscribe to a higher-level business plan that includes more link-posting privileges and other features.

That's about $600 a year.

Excuse me?

What small nonprofit has $600 sitting around to give Facebook so its volunteers can share articles with its members?

We have actual things to spend money on. Things involving actual people. We host social gatherings, in person or online.  We research and send a monthly newsletter.  We help people with their tech problems.  We reward our volunteers with lunch at a restaurant once a year.  We host holiday parties.  We send quarterly gift bags  to all Members.

While we're discussing things nobody asked for, apparently Facebook has also been experimenting with automatically sending greetings from some Pages to their new followers.

One Facebook Page I follow, Two Old Broads on a Farm, discovered that cheerful automated messages were going out to every new follower. They didn't write them. They didn't ask Facebook to send them. And, according to their report, they couldn't figure out how to make them stop.

When they asked Facebook for help, they were told it was a "technical glitch" and Facebook was "working on it."

One of the Old Broads reportedly went on a cussing fit. I feel we could be friends.

Meanwhile, Facebook continues adding AI features, subscriptions, verification plans and assorted bells and whistles while those of us actually trying to USE Facebook spend increasing amounts of time figuring out what changed since Tuesday.

Here's the part that really gets my Gramma goat:

We supplied the content.

For years, we all posted the baby pictures. The vacation pictures. The birthdays and anniversaries. We found our high-school friends. We joined neighborhood groups. We created community organizations. We promoted fundraisers. We shared recipes, obituaries, lost dogs and pictures of grandchildren whether anybody asked to see them or not.

We made Facebook someplace people wanted to visit.

And now Facebook would like us to subscribe for the privilege of doing some of the things we used to do for free.

I'm 74 years old. I have reached the stage of life where I am willing to pay for convenience. I am NOT willing to pay $50 a month for aggravation.

So, Meta, here's a suggestion from Gramma:

Stop moving the buttons. Stop making useful things harder to find. Stop adding things we didn't ask for.

And for heaven's sake, give the little nonprofits their links back.

Gramma is mad.

And Gramma knows how to blog. 

I Have Become My Mother

It has happened.

Despite years of resistance, denial and possibly a little eye-rolling, I have become my mother.

I save rubber bands. Not all rubber bands, mind you. I do have standards. But a perfectly good rubber band? You don't throw that away. It goes in the drawer with the other 147 perfectly good rubber bands.

And pens.

If a bank, insurance agent, doctor's office or local business puts its name on an ink pen and leaves it sitting there for customers, I consider that an invitation. Thank you very much. I'll give it a good home. My mother would be proud.

The evidence has been piling up for some time, but apparently I wasn't paying attention.

Recently, I started saving celery tops in the freezer for making broth. Then I found myself wondering whether carrot tops could go in there, too. I now have a freezer bag specifically designated for vegetable scraps.

A freezer bag for vegetable scraps.

Young Me would not recognize this woman. Young Me bought broth at the grocery store. She threw celery tops in the garbage. She probably threw away perfectly good rubber bands, too. She was reckless.

I've also rediscovered the ancient art of cooking enough food for two meals and freezing half.  Soup especially. And spaghetti sauce.

Why make one pot of soup when you can make one pot of soup and get TWO dinners out of it? This is the kind of logic my mother tried to explain to me decades ago, when I had absolutely no interest in hearing it.  Now when I open the freezer and discover a container of homemade soup I froze three weeks ago I feel as though someone has sent me a present.

From me. To me. And exactly the right size.

Then there are buttons. A button falls off, and I sew it back on. I don't throw the shirt away or give it to Goodwill. I don't announce that the shirt is defective. I don't decide I've been meaning to buy a new one anyway.

I get out a needle and thread. Somewhere, my mother is saying, "Well, of course you do."

I've even become a person who looks at something before throwing it away and thinks:

Could I use this for something?

This is dangerous territory.

This is how you end up with a drawer full of rubber bands, a collection of promotional pens, three containers you're saving because they're "a good size," and frozen vegetable scraps waiting to become chicken broth.

There is, however, a fine line between becoming your mother and becoming a candidate for a television show about hoarding. I'm trying to stay on the correct side of that line. Mostly.

The funny thing is, I used to think all these little habits were about being frugal. Now I think they were about something else, too.

My mother's generation didn't automatically throw things away when they could still be useful. Food wasn't garbage just because it was left over. A missing button didn't make a shirt unwearable. Something free didn't need to be fancy to be useful.

And making tomorrow's dinner while you're making tonight’s? That's not being cheap. That's being smart.

It has taken me only 74 years to figure this out.

So yes, I save rubber bands.

I take the free pens.

I freeze the second batch of soup.

I sew on buttons.

And somewhere in my freezer is a bag of celery tops and other vegetable odds and ends waiting for their moment of glory.

I have become my mother.

And I'm beginning to think that might not be such a bad thing after all.

And yes, if there's nothing stuck to the aluminum foil, I fold it up and use it again.

But I do NOT wash out Ziplock bags.

There have to be boundaries.

AGE DISCRIMINATION!

I've been mildly annoyed this week.

Not seriously annoyed. Nobody has wronged me. I haven't written a letter to the editor. Yet. Just a collection of itty-bitty annoyances that have made me wonder whether the entire modern world is being designed by 27-year-olds with perfect eyesight, excellent hearing, and phones permanently attached to their hands.

For example, why can I do something on an app on my phone, but NOT on the same company's website on my perfectly lovely laptop? I HAVE A BIG SCREEN FOR A REASON.

And unsubscribe buttons. Apparently there is a federal requirement that the word UNSUBSCRIBE be printed smaller than one-tenth of a grain of rice, preferably in pale gray at the very bottom of an email.

Then there are restaurants. I like restaurants. I like eating. I like talking to the people I'm eating with.
I just can't do all three when the background music is loud enough for a nightclub and 47 other people are shouting to be heard over it. Could we turn it down just a smidge?

While we're at the restaurant, could I please have an actual menu? I can use a QR code. I KNOW how to use a QR code. I just don't particularly want to spend dinner scrolling around my phone trying to figure out whether the salmon comes with asparagus. And could we turn up the lights enough that I can SEE the menu?

Other tiny grievances:
Why are instructions printed in microscopic type?
Why does everything need a password?
Why does my dishwasher need Wi-Fi?
Why does a light bulb need an app?
Why does it take a knife, scissors and possibly a chain saw to open a package of batteries?
Why do automatic faucets occasionally decide I don't have hands?

Why do websites use light grey type?

Why does “customer service” now mean spending 20 minutes arguing with a robot that keeps saying, “I understand you want help with your account”?  No. You don't understand. If you understood, you'd let me talk to Susan.

None of these things is legally age discrimination, of course. But sometimes it does feel as though the world is being redesigned around people who can see tiny print, hear conversations over background noise, remember 84 passwords, and consider a six-inch phone screen preferable to a 13-inch laptop.

I'm not asking civilization to turn back the clock. I LIKE technology. I use it every day. I would just like technology to occasionally remember that some of us have reading glasses. (And magnifying glasses). And hearing aids. And laptops.

And we still have money to spend.

So perhaps the next time somebody designs an app, a restaurant, a package, a website or an unsubscribe button, they could invite one person over 70 into the room.

We'll bring our reading glasses.

And opinions.

THE BANK OF GRAMMA

Somewhere along the way, without an application, a banking charter or even one of those little pens chained to a counter, I apparently opened a financial institution.
Welcome to the Bank of Gramma.

We offer checking, savings, credit, transportation, emergency funding and extremely questionable lending practices. Our lobby is open approximately 24 hours a day, although management gets cranky after 9 p.m.
My grandsons are now 12½ and almost 16, which means money has become much more interesting than it was when five dollars seemed like a fortune.

The almost-16-year-old has turned to buying and selling used (now called vintage) clothing into an actual business. And I don't mean occasionally selling an old sweatshirt.  Recently he sold a sweatshirt he'd bought for $200 for $625.  I am simultaneously impressed and wondering what has happened to civilization.

Because he's still a minor, his online sales have been going through my account. So every so often the Bank of Gramma receives a deposit that makes me feel temporarily prosperous.

Unfortunately, it isn't my money. This is a terrible system. And he wants cash once it’s hit my account.  I have to replenish CASH almost every week. The good news is that he understands the concept of buying low and selling high better than many adults. The bad news is that I would also like him to understand another fascinating financial concept:

Saving.

He already has a savings account with $500 in it, (courtesy of the Bank of Gramma.) And with driving age approaching, I have visions of him actually walking into our nearby credit union and depositing some of his profits toward a future car.

Yes. WALKING INTO A BANK.

I realize this makes me sound approximately 112 years old. A new branch of our credit union is opening at the end of October and it is just five blocks from home.

Meanwhile, his younger brother has his own financial system. At 12½, his spending priorities tend toward food, drinks and activities with friends. Somehow a few dollars here and there can disappear with astonishing speed.

I can't really criticize. At his age, I probably would have spent my money on something equally essential. Like a 45-rpm record and a bottle of Coca-Cola.

What fascinates me is how much the mechanics of teaching kids about money have changed.

Mr. 12½ rarely sees actual cash. Money appears on his phone. Purchases happen with a tap. He earns his money doing projects for me.  Deep cleaning our pantry and disposing of expired items.  Cleaning my five floor to ceiling IKEA shelving units by taking everything OFF a shelf, cleaning, sorting through and filling the Goodwill basket then putting everything back in better order.  He’s even cleaned the fridge! (I can’t kneel down and get that bottom shelf and the bins).

Clothing is bought online, sold online and shipped to someone they've never met. The teenager can make hundreds of dollars while sitting in his bedroom. And Grandma can sit in her room watching the transactions go through her checking account while muttering, "Whose $87.42 is THIS?"

So I'm trying to teach the same lessons my generation learned, only in a completely different world:

Some money is for spending.
Some money is for saving.
Credit is not free money.

And if Grandma fronts you $20, Grandma remembers (although she does have to write it down these days).
The Bank of Gramma may have generous lending policies, but our accounting department is ruthless.
And she's had coffee.